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Shelbyville (The Simpsons)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shelbyville is a fictional city on the television series The Simpsons that is located adjacent to Springfield. Shelbyville and Springfield are treated in the series as twin cities, though with an intense rivalry between the two.
Shelbyville was ranked 10th in "The 10 Best Dystopias" in the December 2005 issue of Wired Magazine. [1]
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Like Springfield, Shelbyville is also a city located in a fictional/nonexistent U.S. state (once unofficially named by Simpsons producer David Silverman as "North Tacoma"). Springfield and Shelbyville are twin cities, share at least one common roadway between the two, and Springfield's various broadcast media, particularly radio station KBBL, serves both cities. Springfield is seemingly the more dominant of the two cities, though.
In the episode "Black Widower," a sign outside of the Simpsons' home states that Shelbyville is 34 miles away.
The city of Shelbyville was founded by Shelbyville Manhattan in 1796, who held the belief that people should be allowed to marry their cousins, due to the fact "they're so attractive"; a practice disallowed by fellow explorer and founder of Springfield, Jebediah Springfield. As a result of this disagreement, the two founders and their party split into separate groups, and went their own ways; since that time, the populaces of Springfield and Shelbyville have held a strong rivalry. This feud was demonstrated in the episode “Lemon of Troy” when a group of Shelbyville kids stole the Springfield lemon tree and the Springfield children enter Shelbyville in search of the tree, using guerrilla tactics. This episode is the only episode which shows Shelbyville in detail; including yellow fire hydrants, which causes bully, Nelson Muntz, to chime, "This place is starting to freak me out." Shelbyville is also the home to lemon-shaped rocks, an impound yard and bizzaro Milhouse. The true calling card of a kid from Shelbyville is a candy wrapper. As noted by the real Milhouse, "Those kids in Shelbyville are always eating candy; they love the sweet taste."
Also it is discovered that the drink of choice in Shelbyville is turnip juice.
The rivalry is apparently well-known even among outsiders; in Marge vs. the Monorail, a slick-talking salesman convinces the residents of Springfield to spend a large sum of money on a monorail system they don't need by musing that the idea might be better suited for Shelbyville. (Mayor Quimby quickly tells him that the Springfieldians are twice as smart as the people of Shelbyville, so if he'll just tell them his idea, they'll vote for it.)
According to Abe Simpson in Last Exit to Springfield, Shelbyville was called "Morganville" during the 1910s, which, he elaborates, was when "Nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em" and men tied onions to their belts, "which was the style at the time." This claim conflicts with the story Abe tells in Lemon of Troy where he claims the town was founded with the name Shelbyville after its founder, Shelbyville Manhattan.
In season 18's episode 24 Minutes, guest character Jack Bauer dismisses Springfield's fears after a nuclear bomb goes off, by explaining that the blast happened in Shelbyville. The crowd was relieved by this news.
In "The Seven-Beer Snitch", the Simpsons visit Shelbyville and attend a play entitled "Song of Shelbyville". The play features a parody of Springfieldians as uncultured hicks, and when Lisa objects to this portrayal, the crowd starts pointing at the family and making a noise that Marge calls "hate-hoots". Springfield then proceeds to build an expensive concert hall in another effort to avoid being outdone by Shelbyville. (This effort, like the monorail, goes horribly awry.)
Landmarks and features of Shelbyville include: its own nuclear power plant, owned by Aristotle Amadopoulos; Shelbyville Elementary School; Shelbyville High School (which competes against Springfield High School in student debate competitions); a "Speed-E-Mart" convenience store; local bar "Joe's Tavern (where "Fudd Beer" is served, despite having been recalled after a large number of hillbillies went blind)"; and yellow-colored fire hydrants. Most of these features, and the people staffing them, strongly resemble Springfield's (a female version of Groundskeeper Willie works at Shelbyville Elementary, for instance).
Other features include at least one mini-mall, a Best Western hotel, a city dump, and natural landmarks "Rolling Rock" (a giant boulder rolling between two steep cliffs) and Shelbyville Falls, a waterfall. Shelbyville also has at least one McDonald's restaurant, which Springfield lacks as they have Krusty Burger, and although it has so many differences, it is clear that they ripped off ideas in Springfield (or is it the other way around?).
Shelbyville has at least one suburb, Shelbyville Heights.
Shelbyville's sports teams include the Shelbyville Shelbyvillians (minor league baseball), the Shelbyville Visitors (minor league hockey) and the Shelbyville Sharks (American football). Once a year, the annual "Pigskin Classic" football game is held between the Shelbyville Sharks and Springfield's football team, the Springfield Atoms.
Shelbyville beat out Springfield in the bid for the Olympics, after Springfield's chances for earning it were spoiled by ethnocentric comedy by Bart Simpson.
In The Boys of Bummer, Springfield's little league baseball team, the Iso-Tots get beaten in the championship by Shelbyville's team.
The people of Shelbyville are apparently not much smarter or less quick to anger than the people of Springfield; as noted in one episode, Shelbyville built a minimall, so Springfield built a bigger minimall, in retaliation Shelbyville spiked the town's water supply, and Springfield ended up burning down Shelbyville's city hall, as part of (in Lisa Simpson's words) "another chapter in the pointless rivalry between Springfield and Shelbyville." (Burning down their city hall had been Springfield's revenge for Shelbyville making the world's largest pizza, backing up Lisa's charge of pointlessness.) On other occasions Shelbyville has been shown as the more culturally sophisticated of the two cities with a better public school system and hospital, demonstrated by Abe Simpson saying "I'm going to a better place. Shelbyville hospital!"
Milhouse Van Houten's mother, Luann Van Houten, was born in Shelbyville (explaining why she and her husband (and presumed cousin) Kirk, look alike). Shelbyville is also the only other place in the Simpsons' world to have another person with the name Milhouse.
- ^ Jeremy Adam Smith (December 2005). The 10 Best Dystopias. Wired. Retrieved on 2007-12-12.